Nurse on trial accused of stealing €11k from OAP
A PUBLIC health nurse has gone on trial charged with stealing €11,000 from an elderly patient.
The State case is that Deirdre Kenneally, 47, withdrew sums of money from the ATM using the bank card of pensioner Alice Twomey, and made purchases with her card.
Ms Twomey, since deceased, was in her mid-80s and had dementia.
Prosecution counsel Don McCarthy told Cork Circuit Criminal Court the majority of the allegations relate to Ms Twomey’s bank card. He told the jury that three alleged offences relate to Ms Kennelly being accused of phoning online banking to transfer funds.
Ms Kenneally is accused of transferring the money between Ms Twomey’s accounts. Judge Gerard O’Brien heard that the accused was a health nurse who visited the late Ms Twomey at her home in a remote country farm in Castleyons, Co. Cork. Betty Darcy, a sister of Ms Twomey, said that all of the public nurses who helped her sister were spectacular.
However, Ms Kenneally, of Leitrim, Kilworth, Co. Cork, really seemed to get ‘on the wavelength’ of her sister, who trusted her implicitly, the court heard.
Ms Darcy, 80, who is herself a former bank official, said she was ‘horrified’ and ‘devastated’ when she noticed that money was missing from Ms Twomey’s account when her sister went into Cork’s Mercy University Hospital and a nursing home in 2016.
She said she listened to recordings the bank made of someone moving funds between Ms Twomey’s accounts and that the voice was not that of her sister. Ms Darcy said she was devastated when suspicions lay around Ms Kenneally because, whilst she had never met her, she had spoken to her regularly on the phone and had ‘always praised her’.
‘Nobody was as gobsmacked as I was. We have had the stress of this for the last two and a half years. It is a living nightmare,’ she said.
It is alleged that thefts occurred on two to three occasions prior to Ms Twomey’s admission to hospital. It is the contention of the State that she couldn’t have given consent because of her dementia.
The State also claims she could not have authorised the use of the ATM when she was in the nursing home or hospital.
Ms Darcy said her late sister was a widow living in a remote country farm. She said she called her regularly from her home in Ballintemple, Cork.
Ms Darcy described Ms Twomey as ‘fragile mentally’ and said people found it hard to communicate with her. She said her sister was not the type of person who would talk about finances. She said that it was hard to discuss cash matters with Ms Twomey because she was a suspicious person.
She said that as far as she knew, her sister always used cash. Ms Darcy said she wasn’t even aware her sister had a debit card.
She said her sister was suspi- cious about everything and that she would had been a frugal woman in her youth.
Ms Darcy also said her sister was always shrewd with finances.
She said: ‘[Ms Twomey] was always very honest. She would not owe you anything.
‘She would not take anything belonging to you but also it worked the other way. She knew what she wanted. She did not get what she wanted – that is why the court case is here today.’
Ms Kenneally has pleaded not guilty to 59 theft charges and three charges of using a computer to cause a loss to Ms Twomey.
It is alleged the offences occurred between August 2015 and July 2016 at various locations in Kilworth, Fermoy, Mitchelstown, Cork city and Swords, Co. Dublin. Sums range from €11 to €396.
Prosecution counsel Mr McCarthy warned the jury they couldn’t go down the road of believing that there was ‘no smoke without fire’.
The case continues today.
‘She did not get what she wanted’